


Transparency

by daisybrien



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, F/M, Family, Family Issues, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, LGBTQ Character, Modern Era, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pregnancy, Romance, Transgender, Transgender Pregnancy, Transgender!Hange Zoe, Transgender!Levi, parenting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-28
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-04-17 18:07:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4676264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisybrien/pseuds/daisybrien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life has always been a ready challenger for the two of them, one that they've fought tooth and nail against to find peace of mind. So when it decides to pose another trial for the start of their family, they have no choice but resort to measures that most might think would be the simplest path. But nothing has been simple for Hange and Levi, and what may be the easiest for some may threaten to turn their life upside down, and unintentionally redefine the assumptions life holds to raising a family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

The mailbox is empty by the time Hange makes it home.

She scowls at the inside of the slot, the cold metal seeming to mock her as she’s stands in front of it dejectedly, the December slush seeping into the furry fabric of her boots, her hands numb and empty. She swings the door of it shut with a loud clang, the entire community box shaking on its concrete perch, groaning to herself. She gives the entire box one last glare, staring down the rows of little locked doors, covered in graffiti as they laugh at her in their bright red frame before she yanks her mail key from her own box, huffing a puff of frosty breath as she slumps back into her car left sputtering by the curb.

She takes her time pulling from the side of the road, snuggling deeper into her seat, cupping her hands over her mouth in a futile attempt to warm up her shivering fingers. She turns one of the knobs on her dashboard to full heat before shifts the gear into drive; it’s an incredible waste, not only because she can already see Levi’s own shiny car peeking out of their driveway some ways down the road, but because of how useless the heating system had grown over the years. Everything in her car was growing useless, if not dented and bruised beyond repair. She had put off getting a new one for a while, one of the many things she reminded herself that she didn’t need, that they needed to save more. Levi already had his own car updated, and they didn’t need an extra cost; as long as her car got her to where she needed to go, she would be happy.

The wheel is stiff as she turns the car into their driveway, her fingers burning with cold against its old leather. The garage door opens with the click of the button strapped to her vanity mirror, her car slowly rolling into it. She had learned the consequences of keeping her car out in the open one too many times, having repaired slashed tires and scratched paint more times than she can count. She also wasn’t a madwoman who let her car freeze in the winter’s chill; not everyone gets the privilege of heated seats, she laughs bitterly.

She almost slips as she rushes her way up the porch steps – she reminds herself to salt them when she can actually grab a warm enough coat – barely able to wave a hello to the Jeager’s son shoveling the driveway next door in her frenzy to get to the sweet warmth of her house. She almost laughs with relief when she sees the door was left unlocked, and she enters the house with a sigh of content, the coziness of their little bungalow a welcome sight.

“I’m home,” she hollers, yanking off the scarf around her neck, throwing her jacket over the staircase. She kicks her boots off, chunks of snow flying in their wake, leaving tiny wet spots in the doormat.

The smell from the kitchen beckons her, the sound of the oven fan whirring through the house. The lights are on, pots left to simmer alone on the cooling stovetop, sauce and stew still bubbling as she removes the lids. She nods in approval, almost moaning as her stomach grumbles. But save for her, the kitchen is empty, the pots left to cool unattended, the only thing there to be her company.

“Levi?” she calls, worry flitting through her as she makes her way into the dining room, no other body to be seen. She starts to poke her head through the house, craning her head through doorways to scan rooms from corner to corner, peeking her head into the basement staircase, only to be met with empty, dim rooms. 

She stomps her way past the bedrooms, the floor creaking wildly beneath her feet as she grows more frustrated in her search, only to stop abruptly as she sees the soft light shining from the alcove at the front of the house. She tilts her head, the old couches and rickety cherry table coming into view, shelves lined with her medical books. She almost cheers when she sees Levi’s form at the table, wrapped in one of their tartan blankets, dark hair falling over his face. Something stops her, leaving her mouth hanging open, her hand, raised to pull him towards her, slowly falling to her side; there’s something wrong in him, and she can see it in the sullen slouch of his shoulders, in the strange shuffling sound coming from his hands, in his greater need for seclusion.

She sneaks into the room, crossing her arms as she leans back on the wall by the entryway. She softly clears her throat, a small plea for his attention. His reaction is delayed, as if his body were too weak to move at full speed as he turns to her, one solemn grey eye boring into her.

“You shouldn’t leave the stove unattended,” Hange says. He gives her the smallest smirk. She offers him her own, watches his bright eyes as his brain tries to work together a crude rebuttal behind them. But the same sadness is there, leaving behind nothing but his small frown.

“I don’t really care about the stove right now,” he deadpans. He turns back to the table, and she’s left staring at his back again.

“Well you should,” she says. She steps forward, putting her weight on one leg as she looks down at him critically. “I think we would really care if the house burned down. Or if the obviously wonderful dinner you made goes to waste.”

“Well, I hope you enjoy it,” Levi says. “I turned the stove off anyway. It’ll be ready soon.” He doesn’t even look at her, and she feels irritation start to bubble in her stomach. She tries to push it down, focus herself on making sure he is okay. 

“Something’s wrong,” she states. Honesty is the best policy, she thinks, and she wasn’t going to dance around the issue with small talk while he sat there sulking.

“You bet your ass there’s something wrong,” he snorts to himself, and they both know that whatever it is, it isn’t funny.

“Something happen at work?” she asks.

“No.”

“Someone die?”

“God no.”

“Will you tell me what it is then?” she groans. 

She steps forward as he shifts in his seat, falling back to lean his head against the back of the frilly loveseat she had picked out against his protests. He stares up at the ceiling, eyes distant, and she notices that they’re bloodshot, a small tinge of red lining his lids, puffy and swollen. She can see the tabletop now, envelopes strewn across its surface. One lies torn open on top of the pile, a crumpled sheet of stationary perched beside it.

“You got the mail,” she says softly. She feels her stomach sink at the sight of the letter lying on the table, torn and crushed in frustration.

“I’ve been waiting by the window every day,” he huffs. He leans forward, elbows on his knees, his face buried in his hands. He raises his head, pulling at the skin of his face, reaching to hold the envelope in his hand. He taps it on the edge of the table, face resolute in its solemnity. “I’ve watched the mailman drive by every day since we applied, waiting for this fucking letter.” 

Hange leans over the table, looking down to read the lettering printed over the mail, recognizing the adoption agency’s address stamped across the shredded envelope. 

“What did they say?” she breathes. She tries to stay hopeful, knowing it will just be a futile attempt to delay the inevitable. She reaches down to grab the crumpled ball anyway, unfolding it tentatively.

“Fuck, Hange,” Levi growls. “What do you think it says?” He throws himself back onto the loveseat, hands running through his hair; she ignores him, only focused on the unfurling paper in her hands, one that she watches with a horrified awe. Her eyes immediately catch the words ‘regret’ and ‘inform’ in the very first sentence, and she doesn’t even bother to read the rest of its mocking print, letting it drift to the floor. 

“They rejected us,” she gasps, astonished. “We haven’t even gone through any evaluation, haven’t even gone through any options. And they’ve already rejected us.”  
She stands there desolately, staring at the rows of books lined along the shelves against the walls. The titles of medical journals and texts seem jumbled, incomprehensible; she can’t tell if its from the tears or the shock, both of them from something she should have expected, but refused to believe in her fruitless attempt to stay optimistic. 

“Fuck,” she moans, her head falling back. Her eyes burn, the pot lights in the ceiling blurring into furry stars as she stares at them through unshed tears. “Fuck!” she screams, louder, enough to make Levi jump; she keels over, a desperate sob grating through her throat.

“What the hell did you expect, Hange?” Levi cries.

“I expected a fucking chance!” she shrieks. She gets up, pacing the room, her hands pulling at her hair as tears start to roll down her cheeks freely. Her stomach twists deep in her gut, hands shaking with unbridled fury as she flies out of the room, screaming down the hallway as a grating wail tears its way through her throat.

“Zoe!” Levi calls after her; he uses her first name, the shock of it pulling her from the storm of anger rushing through her head, one she threatens to succumb to. His footfalls sound their way over the creaking floorboards as he rushes after her. He grabs her wrist, turning her around to look at him with teary eyes and wobbling lip.   
“Don’t do this.”

“What am I supposed to do then?” she sobs. “What do we do?” Her face crumples, and she buries her face in her hands, utterly heartbroken. When Levi lets go of her wrist, stepping forward to hold her face, she jolts back. 

“This happens to people all the time,” he says. “They find something and they’ll outright deny people, it isn’t fair.”

“It’s not unfair,” she growls. Her hands fly from her face, gesticulating wildly before she straightens herself up, one hand on her hip, the other pointing like a lecturer, wagging it in the air matter-of-factly. “It’s discrimination.”

“Hange,” he groans. He presses forward, but she evades him again, her own words overcoming his.

“No, it is, Levi,” she says. “It’s not right, they can’t just deny us before we can prove ourselves. We should report this.”

“Trying to do anything about it isn’t going to get us anywhere,” he presses. “Not when our records aren’t exactly perfectly clean.”

“How can you blame ourselves for this?” she cries incredulously. “We have nothing that could have gotten us completely denied like this-“

“You don’t have anything,” Levi interrupts. “I don’t exactly have the cleanest slate.”

Hange’s shoulders slump, a shattered sigh drifting out of her. She presses the heels of her hands into her eyes, hiccoughing as she wobbles weakly on her feet, wiping the mess of tears and snot from her face. When Levi tries to approach her this time, she stays still, letting his arms wrap around her, a warm cocoon. He presses his face into her chest, slowly swaying in an attempt to calm her.

“You can’t blame yourself for this,” she whimpers, pressing her nose into his shoulder, sniffing. “You couldn’t help any of that.”

“Well, not a lot of people want to try and sympathize with why you might have a criminal record,” he says thickly, his voice muffled by her shirt.

“We would have tried so hard,” Hange mumbles. “We were gonna clear out the front room, sell all the old furniture and put in cute little foam mats for a playroom,” her voice wobbles painfully, words broken by the occasional broken sob, cracked and miserable. “I already asked Mike if he could turn the bookshelves into cabinets and anchor them to the wall so we wouldn’t have to take them to the basement when we renovated it. 

“We already had their room set up,” she sobs, rattling off the list in her brain; all the preparations, all the excitement gone to waste. It pains her to think about, even as superficial as some of them are, but she keeps going, fueling the throbbing ache in her heart. “We were waiting to see how old they would be before we bought the bed.” 

She feels Levi run a hand through her hair soothingly, his lips by her ear to shush her cries, but she feels the sorrow in him too, the slightest of shakes running through his chest. She peeks over his head, looking down the side hallway at the closed door; she can imagine it perfectly in her mind, as if seeing its soft blue walls through the door, the empty dressers and cupboards where their child would have made their life. 

“Hey,” Levi says. He pushes himself away, but only enough to caution, not to disengage. He cups her face in his hands, thumbs brushing over her cheeks. “You’re getting too overwhelmed by this.”

“I was so happy to finally go through this,” she says. “I was so hopeful that we would actually get the chance, and now there was no point to any of it.”

“I know,” Levi says. Hange reaches up to take his hands, pulling them down in between the two of them. They don’t look at each other, staring down with sad eyes at the weathered wooden floors, scratched and dented, their own calloused hands painfully intertwined pale against its fading dark. “This isn’t the end. There are so many other things we can do.”

“You wanted to adopt so badly,” Hange groans. 

“Well, we don’t always get exactly what we wish for,” Levi sighs. “I’m willing to sacrifice that to start a family.”

“You shouldn’t have to,” she says. “We shouldn’t have to give this up.”

Levi blows a breath through his nose, one hand running through his hair. He pushes past her, one hand still clasped with hers as he pulls her into the kitchen. “I think dinner should be cool by now.”

Hange frowns at the back of his head as he leads her away, but she doesn't resist him, letting him drag her to their counter. They shuffle through the cupboards, china and metal clinking as they sort out the cutlery, ladling out the food in quiet thought. Silence hangs in the air over them like a raincloud as they sit at the table, their eyes focused on their plates. She twirls her spoon through her stew glumly, watching the lines in the swirling broth spiral in cute little patterns but never bringing any spoonfuls to her mouth, leaving it cold and neglected in her plate. She leans her head on her hand, eyes following chunks of meat and vegetable bobbing like tiny buoys in the sea; she has no appetite for them, her stomach clenched in worry and despair.

“Am I going to have to scold you for playing with your food?” Levi says, making her jolt.

“Only if I can do the same,” she responds. She peeks up at him, barely mustering a small, tired smirk; he mirrors her, his face drawn and eyes dull, slouched over a meal he has barely touched.

“Zoe, listen,” he says. 

She perks, the same way she does whenever he uses her first name; it signals his sincerity, or his seriousness, jokes or bickering distasteful in whatever he is trying to introduce. He prods her elbow, and she drops her arm, taking his hand. She squeezes tightly, their hands clasped across the tabletop.

“I know we both really wanted this,” Levi continues. “If you want to try again or try to challenge it, I will be beside you every step of the way. 

“But you have to know that our chances aren’t good,” he says. “At all. It can take years to go through the process. I’ve been in the situation too many times to count.”

“I know,” Hange says. “I just want to try again, or at least defend ourselves against it, even if it doesn’t succeed.”

“Even if it doesn’t,” he says, “it isn’t the be all end all of our family. We have so many options. We’ll figure something out.”

“Yeah,” she says. “We will. We always do.”

He feels his fingers grow tighter around her hand, an attempt to be reassuring; it only comes off as stifling, desperate, a failure to hide his own helplessness, the two clinging onto each other for support even as they both crumble together. She flashes him a small smile anyway, one that he barely returns without looking like a grimace, before finally settling into her meal, broth falling flat and cold on her tongue. Her heart aches in her chest, and she sits there unmoving, mourning for a lost child she may never even get to have.


	2. Chapter 1

In his winter coat and scarf, the office is unbearably hot.

It had taken weeks to get here, suffering through dozens of dodging phone calls and unhelpful secretaries, numbers that redirected to department after department. It was something to be anxiously anticipated with bouncing knees and bitten nails, a final shot at the possibility of a second chance. He should be happy, relieved that they had managed this, but Levi only sits with there in an irritated haze, unzipping his parka in order to let in what little breeze the warm office refuses to offer him. He had never had much of a disdain for these kinds of offices. But as he sits there in the sturdy metal chair hastily offered to them, sitting on the side of the desk meant to intimidate, to find whatever solace they can get from some ambiguous authority, the only thing he wants to do is leave.

Hange wrings her hands in her lap nervously; they scratch at the fabric of her thick jeans, her nails grating against the rough fabric. She stands erect in front of the desk, eyes wide and alert. Her lower lip ducks under her front teeth as she chews on it, one hand reaching up to her mouth. It is not like her to be this nervous; at least, it is unlike her to possess this kind of nervousness. He knows her to be one who can keep composure under stress, to literally get her hands into dirt and guts with a calm calculated accuracy, or to lose it all in a fit of rage. This anxiety, so typical and in between, seemed too strange to him. 

He reaches to tap her wrist before she can start chewing at her thumbnail, making her jump, her hand falling solemnly back onto her lap. Her fingers keep twisting, unyielding, but she is not the only one who is on edge. 

In front of them, over the large expanse of his oak desk, a mousy looking man shuffles through papers, scrutinizing with squinting eyes as he peers through the glasses perched on the tip of his nose. He reorganizes his sheaf again, picking and choosing from loose sheets strewn across his desktop. His laptop is lost under them, its tiny lights the only thing peeking out, and glinting against the picture frames huddled around the desk edges. If Levi cranes his neck enough, he can see them; a black and white wedding photo, family gatherings in colour, young children with grinning, gapped teeth bared. It leaves a sour taste in his mouth, to see the man deciding their family’s – or lack thereof – fate when he has the privilege of one without a second thought. He still looks at them anyway, his only source of entertainment in such a boring room of bland intellect, the ticking of the clock on the wall about to drive him mad. If the heat isn’t choking, it is the silence.

The man picks up a sheet again, skimming through it with an expression of awed confusion, lips pursed. Finally, he sets the sheet down delicately onto the table, folding his hands on top of it as he leans forward.

“So,” he begins, his voice low and gravelly. “You two are here to discuss the denial of your adoption request.”

Levi sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration. They had been over this too many times to count. Before he can grunt out his response, Hange speaks over him. She would always be the better speaker, the most amiable above him.

“Yes,” she says. Despite the warmth of the room, she wraps her arms around herself. “I believe we have clarified that multiple times.”

“Yes, I see,” the man muses. He flips one sheet in his pile forward, looking down to his desk and looking back up again, his brow furrowed. He opens his mouth to say something, chin lolling comically before he gives up entirely. Hange fills the silence that threatens to fall over them again.

“We’re here to discuss the terms of our rejection,” she says. One leg lifts itself elegantly onto the other, her hands clasped on her knee as she talks. “Especially since it was so definitive before we could go through any secondary screening.”

“So you’ve assumed that we have denied you unfairly?” He glares at her over the top of his specs.

“Unfortunately, yes.” 

“Well, I can’t help but be slightly suspicious,” he says. He slips off his glasses, putting them to the side. “If you’ve come here to refute the reasons that we may have denied you for, then you must think there are reasons for you to be denied in the first place.”

“If we believed there was sufficient evidence that would prove us unsuited to raise a child,” Hange says, force in her tone, “we would not be here to refute it, let alone have tried to go through the process in the first place. Since that is obviously not the case, and we do believe there isn’t anything substantial that could make us undesirable parents, we are here.

“That said,” she continues. Her hands unfurl, gesturing to the mess of his desk. “I would appreciate it if we could start discussing the reason we’ve gone to all this trouble to make this appointment.”

“It has been trouble indeed,” the man says. Hange raises her brow in sync with his. Levi shifts in his seat, wanting to interrupt but too unsure of himself to, and too amused by the idea of his wife tearing into the man like tissue paper. 

“Then let’s get on with it.”

The man scowls, reluctantly straightening out his papers. 

“I’m sorry to tell you this,” he says flatly, and Levi is pretty sure that whatever he is about to say, he is not going to be sorry at all. “But there were some major discrepancies that we found while doing your background check. There is also some,” he pauses, flipping through, the bottom half of his face obscured by the sheets his eyes remain glued on, “inconsistency, between some of your current and past government documentations.”

“What kind of inconsistency?” Hange growls, her eyes widening. Something flashes in her, her face growing hard, her body growing tall. Levi jolts in his seat too, feeling his stomach twist in his gut. He clenches his fists by his side.

“Oh, well – uh,” the man is caught off guard, stuttering under Hange’s gaze as his mouth tries to form around the words he cannot seem to find, wracking his brain for something that would cause the least offense. “Mainly just changes in documents. That is besides the point, it’s more a matter of confusion and organization than an issue in rejection.”

“If you brought it up while trying to introduce issues in our processing, you must think it is one,” Hange continues. 

“I just explained that it isn’t a main issue.”

“But you brought it up. You must think it is one,” she says. “In what ways can changes in our documents cause concern?”

“Really, none,” he says. “It never really has.”

“Until now, apparently,” she seethes. She almost gets up from her seat, but glances at Levi from the corner of her eye. He shakes his head slightly, and she leans back in her chair reluctantly, wrapping her scarf tighter around her neck.

“I never said it was,” the man says. Levi digs the nail of his thumb into the palm of his hand, exhaling through his nose. He is avoiding her questions, trying to save his own ass from a grievance and another two week sensitivity training course. 

“Like I said, there are much bigger issues,” the man continues. He leans back in his office chair, lounging, as if he weren’t holding their fate in their hands. He scrutinizes them over his glasses, eyes judgmental, gaze unyielding in the discomfort it causes. It makes Levi fidget in his seat. “Including past criminal records.” 

Hange falls silent, the ticking clock filling the space her words would have been. She starts to wring her hands again, the man raising his eyebrows inquisitively, ready to shut down any of their rebuttals. 

Levi tries to argue anyway, speaking for the first time since they had entered that office. “That is assuming what is on the record is severe enough to warrant our rejection.”

“Well, I do believe that any kind of police record could warrant that,” the man says. He adjusts his glasses on his nose, readying the list. “Public indecency, vandalism, underage drinking-“

“Those are all minor offences,” Levi says. His heart hammers in his chest, heat starting to bloom in his cheeks and under his collar.

“Any offence is a serious one,” the man says. “Especially when this involves the custody of a child.”

“Have you ever considered the context of those offences?”

“That doesn’t prove much to me, unless you can provide adequate information regarding any kind of rehabilitation,” the man says. “That also doesn’t prove that you couldn’t be a repeat offender now.”

“Like he can be arrested for underage drinking now,” Hange grumbles under her breath. Levi snorts, watching the corners of her lips quiver as she tries to suppress her smirk. The two are silenced by the man’s glare.

“While I understand why these offences might be considered minor,” he says, unamused, “our agency has determined that they are serious enough to warrant immediate denial.”

Having sobered from her joke, Hange takes charge again. “What if we chose to fight it?”

“I wouldn’t recommend it,” he says, shrugging. “You can apply again and try to urge your case through, but if it is deemed inappropriate again it could damage your chances even more, even with other organizations.”

“So you’re still saying you won’t even consider us,” Hange says. The two fall into silence, the man slouching in his chair as he shrugs at them, offering nothing but his stern disapproval and a look of apathy. 

Hange gets up from her seat suddenly, straightening out her jacket. Surprised, Levi follows suit.

“Thank you for your time,” Hange snaps, the malice in her voice betraying her dissatisfaction and irritation. The two make their way to the door. 

“You’re welcome,” the man says, Levi stopping with one foot halfway out the door. “Considering I don’t have much time to spare for these matters in the first place.” Hange whips around at that, brow furrowed deeply, her ponytail whipping Levi in the face.

“Well, not many people do,” Hange says, “especially when sorting out adoptions isn’t in their job description.”

Levi only glimpses the man’s face fall into a snarl as he follows Hange out of the office, the door slamming behind them. 

She speeds out into the lobby, fast enough that Levi can barely keep up with her. Her shoulders are hunched, hands stuffed deep into her pockets as she pushes forward, ignoring the people looking up from their phones and newspapers as she stomps out of the building. When he does make it beside her, he can hear her grumbling under her breath.

“Document changes,” she spits, “just a fancy word for his utter ignorance and all that shit. Thinks he can get away with being an asshole by treating it like a matter of proper identification, fucking jerk.”

He opens the door before she can run into it, lets her walk past him out into the frigid outdoors. Her face retreats behind her scarf to fend of the biting chill, her words growing unintelligible. 

He follows her out, feels the cold invade the space between his body and his coat. He hastily zips up his jacket, folding his arms over himself. He brings his head farther under his collar like a turtle retreating into its shell for protection, the wind stinging at his face and burning in his nose every time he sniffs the air. He keeps his head down, avoiding the offending wind and the bright glare of the afternoon sun, keeps his eyes trained on his winter boots as they clomp on the dark asphalt. 

Levi brushes against Hange’s side, looping his arm around hers. She falls out of her reverie, giving him a soft smile as she relaxes beside him.

He pulls her to the car, wincing as he finds the cold metal of his car keys in his pocket. He hears the locks snap open at the click of his key buttons, and herds the two of them to the proper sides of the car. 

The two of them slump into their seats with a groan, slamming their doors against January air. They are silent, no sound but for the chattering of Hange’s teeth, the shuffle of his parka. Levi stares at a spot of dirt on his windshield, numb.

“Fucking asshole,” Hange says. She curls up into her seat, her arms crossed over her chest to fend from the cold and her own fury. 

“We did what we could,” Levi sighs. He turns the key in the ignition, feels the car come to life under him. He turns the heat all the way up before pulling out of his parking space. “Let’s try to move on from this.”

“And do what?” she groans. She seems to sink into herself, a lump hanging unceremoniously over his passenger seat. 

“I don’t fucking know,” Levi says. “We’ll figure something out.”

She grunts, turning to face the window. He wonders if she doesn’t trust his words; he doesn’t think he would either.

“Turn on the heated seats,” she says. She reaches her hand over to the dashboard, and he swats it away, ignoring her cry of indignation.

“They waste the battery,” he says. “I already have the heat on.”

“Your wife comes before your car battery.”

“Can’t drive my wife around without a car battery.”

“Dude, I would kill for a car like this,” Hange says. He scowls as her arm reaches out again, but he doesn’t swat it away this time. “If I knew you were gonna take these seats for granted I wouldn’t have let you get them.”

“You don’t get to ‘let’ me do anything,” Levi says.

“I know that,” she says. “I can’t help be disappointed in you letting these go to waste.”

“They’re a waste already.” He shifts in his seat. “They’re only warm enough to make you feel like you’ve pissed your pants.”

“We can switch cars then,” she says. “Then maybe you’ll realize how much you’ve be taking these seats for granted.”

Levi sighs, his fingers clutching the steering wheel in a vice grip. He had been telling her for months to buy a new car, if not something better than the scrap of junk she seemed to have grown so loyal to despite it threatening to sputter out on her. He keeps his mouth shut, can almost feel her eyes boring into him, waiting for the response that stutters behind his lips so she can give her usual ranting rebuttal. He doesn’t give her the chance, and she is forced to stay silent on her stance of frugality, adamant in saving enough money for the baby they had been trying to have for so long.

The car is silent but for the gusts of wind blowing by them as they speed through. She turns away from him, sniffling, and Levi doesn’t know whether it is from the cold or the tears she won’t let him see. He doesn’t ask. 

“You can drop me off at the subway,” she croaks tentatively.

“I was going to drive you to work.”

“Don’t have to,” she says. “You won’t have to go as far, I don’t want you driving there in this weather.”

“They’ve probably salted all the roads already,” Levi reassures. 

“Just drop me off,” she sighs heavily. She turns to him, offers a shaky smile.

He complies, reluctantly turning off at the next light. He pulls into the parking lot, stops himself by the curb to let her out. 

She leans over, dry lips smacking him on the cheek before she rushes out the door. “Thanks,” she calls as she opens the doors to the back seat, pulling out her own duffel bag. The dark blue sleeve of her scrubs peeks out from the open zipper, and she shoves it back in hastily. He wonders what monstrosities must be growing at the bottom of it by now. 

He almost pulls into drive again before he hears a knock at the passenger window. His head whips around to see Hange standing there, peering in at him with curious eyes. She cranks her fist in a circle, and he lowers the window, feels the cold air rush in.

“Levi?” Her tentative voice calls him through the rush of wind and speeding cars. “Try not to get so stressed about this at work today, alright? We will figure something out.”

“I know,” he says. “You make sure you don’t either.” He nods, turns his head away slightly; the fact of them having to remind each other setting another knot in his stomach.

She flashes him a confident smile before turning away. Levi stares at her back as she goes, pulling off the curb long after she has disappeared from sight. He turns the heated seats off as he drives out of the parking lot. 

The roads are almost empty as he makes it down the highway, swerves around the cars lined bumper to bumper abandoned for the day on the narrow city streets. There are only a few lone cars that run beside him, the rest of the world too deep into their workday to be out. The drive is long and lonely, and he silently wishes Hange was still beside him, both to keep him away from work to bring her to her own and to fight the lonesome sadness that seeps into his bones.

Before he realizes it, he is back into the winter cold, squeezing through parked cars as he makes it to a dull gray building perched on a busy street corner. A water stained sign hangs over the entranceway, once white letters announcing to the parking lot the site of a social services office.

The warmth of the small lobby is welcoming. He starts to strip off his winter jacket, bowing his head as he makes his way past the receptionist’s desk. He makes it around the few cubicles lined in the middle, heads popping up over their dividers and peeking out from offices that split off from the walls. He gives a nod in return, and their smiles falter, slowly ducking behind their doorways again. He doesn’t pay them much attention, only seeks the solitary of his own room. He’s about to shut the door behind him before someone stops it.

Levi whips around, face twisting into a scowl before his eyes meet Erwin’s. 

“Levi,” he says, leaning one shoulder against the doorframe. “You’re back from your appointment.”

“Obviously,” Levi snorts. He turns back to his desk, setting his bag on it as he finds his way behind it.

“How did it go?”

“Take a guess,” Levi grumbles. 

“Oh,” Erwin says. He looks down at his shoes. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

There is a beat of silence, the two staring down at the carpeting as they face each other. Levi leans on the desk, letting out a long, tired breath, and he is about to lie in an assurance of his emotional wellness before Erwin interrupts him.

“Look, Levi,” he sighs. His face is earnest, eyes sorrowful; he seems to deflate, his commandeering air fading, the straight back and open chest of a steadfast man in charge all but disappearing. Erwin looks to him desperately, and Levi can see through the façade of his boss to the long time friend underneath. “You know I have always tried to do you right, and if I were in any other position, you know how much I would try to help you out with this, but-“

“Shut up,” Levi deadpans.

Erwin’s eyes grow wide, startled at its suddenness. “Excuse me?”

“You heard what I said,” Levi says. He looks to Erwin, who stands gaping at him in the doorway, and for a minute he is afraid that he is about to be reprimanded as the employee with the professionalism he tries to have yet fails miserably at mimicking. He would be deserving of it.

Erwin does nothing, only looks back down at his shoes. Levi sighs, clenching his fists to relieve the tension that sinks deep into his muscles.

“You’ve done enough,” Levi says, more softly this time. “You’ve done more than enough.” He nods his head, as if to agree with his own statement. His head darts back and forth, seeming to avoid Erwin’s gaze. The man had always had eyes too piercing to look at without feeling the slightest twinge of intimidation, carrying a dazzling and unnerving knowledge and understanding of the person they set themselves upon.

Erwin gives Levi a sympathetic smile, speaking over his shoulder as he leaves, closing the door behind him. “Don’t give up yet.”

Levi sighs, flopping into his office chair. He leans his head back, his thumb and forefinger pinching at his eyes hard enough for bright yellow stars to start bursting behind his eyelids, a comfortable, pressing ache settling into his head behind them. He blinks his eyes open, staring up at the stucco ceiling, at the desk in front of him, pens and pencils in their proper containers, papers stacked neatly in order. On the corner of his desk, a picture of him and Hange stands sentinel. They are both beaming at him from behind the frame, smiling in a rare moment of unbridled joy as if in complete ignorance of the abuse the world liked to readily throw at them. He looks at it now, his cheek mushed up against Hange’s and his own rare grin staring out at him, and he almost gives into the urge to tip it face down on the desk so he doesn’t have to see his own face mocking him, a blatant disregard to his own pain.

He thinks back to the man who had so slyly judged them over the ancient spectacles perched on his nose, to the mess of his desk and the picture frames guarding its edges like soldiers edges to the emptiness of Levi’s own. He feels his stomach twist in his gut, not at the gross disorganization he would usually sneer at, but the look of all those still, flat smiles that must be looking up to that awful man now; wives, brothers, sisters, parents, children, grandchildren, all staring up at him to bring him the comfort and warmth of family as he snatched it readily away from others. Anger bubbles in Levi’s gut as he looks around his own office, fed up with the system that had screwed him over time and time again yet blindly ended up contributing to in his own naïve attempt to change it. How the hell did he end up behind the same desk of that man, given the same privileges to give and take what had so similarly been ripped away from him?

He tries to unpack his things, organize his files. His mind jumps to other thoughts, eyes wandering from the words in front of him, and soon he gives up, taking a trip to the break room.

It is a small and cramped little space, a few tables jammed in the middle, slate countertop lining the walls. The microwave in the corner sits their solemnly, crud lining its small outward window. There is a temporary spot of colour that stands out against the dingy white walls of the place, Petra’s hair a shock of red against the white walls as she sits tucked into one of the tables there, hovering over her own lunch.

She smiles as he walks by, waving her fork at him. “Look who finally showed up!”

Levi grunts out a greeting as he heads to the coffee machine. He grabs one plastic cup from the meager stack beside it as he turns it on. Soon, its bubbling brings background noise to the silence, joining the squeaks of Petra’s fork against her Tupperware. 

He only turns back to her once the cup is full, its warmth comforting in his hands. She is just starting to pack up, giving him a small smile as she does.

“Slow day today?” Levi chokes out. He brings the cup to his mouth, taking a bitter sip.

“Er, yeah,” she says. “Thank god, too. The last few weeks have been hell. Especially with half the office gone for New Year’s.”

“Yeah,” Levi says.

Petra stops, looking over his slouched form against the counter. She opens her mouth to say something, lips quivering around the words too cautious to utter themselves before giving up. Levi looks down into the swirling black of his coffee cup; he doesn’t want to share his recent heartbreak, let alone admit that it was one. He can’t help but feel both irritated by her – and no doubt the entire office’s – curiosity of it. He is thankful of her knowledge not to pry.

“We’re going to be celebrating Auruo’s birthday a little late this year,” Petra quips. She slings her back over her arm, making her way to the doorway. “We wanted to have our own little thing at home with friends.”

“Okay,” Levi nods. 

“Well, uh,” she stutters, Levi cringing to himself as he sees her stumble with his own fault in his lack of social ineptness, “he wanted to invite you.”

“Alright,” Levi says.

“And Zoe, too, if she wants to, of course,” she says. “We barely see her, it would be nice to actually have a conversation with her for once.”

Levi smirks to himself. “I’ll have to see if she isn’t busy. I’ll tell her though.”

“Thanks,” she says. She turns around, golden hair splaying as she hurries back to her own desk. “I’ll put a sticky note on your desk.”

Levi sighs, enjoying the few minutes of solitude he has before downing the dregs of his coffee. He pushes himself off the counter, grudgingly making his way to face the work lying mockingly on his desk.


	3. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Pops up after four months of absolute silence with this fic* Hey what is up everyone.
> 
> I overestimated my ability to keep a longfic going so just bear with me alright.

The start of the day is branded by the slow, groggy movement of early morning crowds, trudging along in the thick, smoky air of the city. Shoulder to shoulder, people clomp their way down into subway terminals, crowded lines winding their way through slow turnstiles, beckoning commuters into the choking, metallic air of the underground, musty and acrid with hints of fuel and hidden litter. No one smiles; there is no hostility in most of their faces, lined and drawn out in stretching yawns from the early hour, and it is in the only burn of sleep still tingling behind their eyes that leaves most of them stone faced and unapproachable, at least to her.

Maybe if Hange were more aware during these mornings, just slightly more awake from an extra minute of sleep or stronger coffee, she would have grown to loathe the crowded trains and pressing bodies of her commute, the nearly constant delays of an inconvenient and overworked transit system, built by minds that had underestimated the capacity it would need to hold. There are mornings where it almost does, when she is left to stand squished between others during the morning rush. Yet most of the time, it almost comes as a relief, commuters too tired to take her notice, all moving quietly and swiftly, too preoccupied in their own thoughts to bother to be rude. Swept away in the crowds of early morning lethargy, she feels safe, no one paying her mind as she squeezes into her own little corner with her coffee in hand.

It follows the same rhythm, the same squealing of wheels on rails, a soft lurch forward as the disembodied voice of the subway announces the next stop, the doors opening then closing with a soft chime. Squeal. Lurch. Voice. Open. Chime. Close. Lurch. Repeat. 

The pattern is enough to lull her into sleep, even among the crowd. Some people do, the man beside slowly tipping over onto her shoulder, mouth lolling open as he lets out the inklings of a snore. She snorts to herself, not bothering to push him off, empathizing with his exhaustion. She only makes sure her phone is on mute, taking a inconspicuous selfie.

Squeal. Lurch. Voice. Open. Chime. Close. Lurch. Repeat. She grumbles at her phone, no reception in the underground. She pulls out her earbuds, hoping they could dispel some of the boredom of the trip. People mill in and out, crowding around each other; it would almost be cozy if they weren’t strangers.

Squeal. Lurch. Voice. Open. Chime. Close. Lurch. Repeat. She cranes her neck, peeking between faces and bodies to glance at the map above the doors. The dots along the little yellow loop on the map begin to light up, a row of green slowly getting longer and longer as they reach her stop. Her leg bounces impatiently.

Squeal. Lurch. Voice. Her stop finally lights up. She gets up, muttering a small, amused apology as the man beside her jerks awake at the movement. He has no time to process her, and she already out the train doors, her feet planted on the platform escalators bringing her up to the terminal by the time the train has blasted out of the station. 

Hange plows her way through the throng of the station, clambering up the stairs into the streets above. Wind whips at her face violently, burrowing into her collar and making her shiver. She takes too long of a moment to pull her jacket closed, people bumping into her from behind. She shuffles out of their way begrudgingly, adjusting herself.

Despite the disruption, there is no need to catch her bearings. This area could be one of the city’s landmarks in itself, one long, busy street dotted with taxis and cars along its length, hospitals bordering it side by side, only a few of the windows glowing bright yellow against the dark of the winter morning. Empty flowerbeds decorate the medians lining the middle of the street, along with towering flagpoles sporting international flags, leading towards the province’s parliament building, shared with the ancient parts of the city’s university campus.

She turns her back to it, bolting across the street as the signal counts down the mere seconds until the lights change, its flashing hand reprimanding her for not waiting. With numb hands shoved into her pockets and eager feet, she makes her way up the street, almost running to escape from the cold. 

The warm air of Mount Sina Hospital embraces her like a hug, such a comfort from the bitterness of outside that she could lie down on its shiny tile lobby, feel the warmth radiate from the floor directly to her skin like a lizard on a rock under the desert sun. Instead, she presses forward, unbuttoning her coat as the wide, pretty lobby from the main doors leads her to the staurs.

The cozy cafes and gift shops of the decorative lobby is a distant dream compared to the harshness the stair doors open to. She makes her way through the maze of white hospital walls, the familiar scent of antiseptic and soiled linens filling her nose; she’s grown used to it now, the stench familiar enough to be comforting. She relishes in it sometimes, knowing that when she comes home Levi will complain that she carries it on her, along with the germs and disease of the ill. Sometimes she’ll wrap him in a bear hug and watch him struggle in until he can wiggle out of her grip, leaving her chasing his screaming form around the house until one of them knocks something over.

Hange sighs, reminding herself she will get to do it tonight, if she can only struggle through the exhaustion of the morning; the earlier she gets to work, the earlier she can go home to her husband and bug him. It’s worth waking up before five in the morning if it means she can get her shift over with before dinner has grown cold at home.

Sometimes.

She stumbles into the staff lounge blearily to start another pot of coffee, only to see it already running – the coffeemaker is never off here, always ready for a sleep deprived doctor or nurse to get their fix in the wake of a night shift – before finally stripping off her winter clothes, exchanging them for the wrinkled white coat in her bag, donning it over her scrubs. Shoving her phone in her pocket and slinging her bag over her shoulder, she scurries her way across the hall to the on-call room

She opens the door slowly, cringing as the hinges grate against each other, creaking slow and long in the silent air. The room is dim, the yellow glow of a lamp hidden behind the door casting lines of shadow across the cramped, dusty room. She sighs wearily at the sight of another body snoozing in the bed wedged in the corner before dropping her stuff on one of the few chairs standing lonely in its center.

It slumps down with a muffled crash, much louder than she had expected, and she cringes when the body on the bed starts, lazily turning over. There is a soft groan, a gargled squeak of confusion as the mass of baby blue scrubs turns over to investigate the source of the offending noise. A mop of auburn hair, messed and unwashed, rises from the pillow, unfocused eyes peeking over their shoulder.

“Sorry,” Hange hisses, scolding herself silently. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Moblit rises from the bed slowly, the weight of his own exhaustion pressing down on his limbs, his body moving like a limp marionette forcefully carried by a cruel puppeteer. He speaks, whatever words he does say reaching her ear as a jumbled, gurgling mumble of tired moans, waving his hand in a noncommittal gesture as if waving off her concern. He sits up on the edge of the bed, rubbing his bleary face, slumped and defeated.

Hange crosses her arms over her chest, leaning against the wall to watch him in amusement; knowing there was no chance to sleep in the first place helps dissipate her guilt.

“Tough night on call?” she offers. 

He leans forward, thumb and forefinger pinching the bridge of his nose, muffling the slow, pained groan that escapes him. His face is creased in wrinkles too old for his young, once eager face, his body – to Hange’s general disbelief of the possibility – even stiffer than usual, the tension of his muscles from his endurance and anxiety grown, as if he were a human spring whose coil was wound tight enough to burst against his restraints. In the dim of the lamplight, the circles under his tired eyes look like bruises.

“C’mon,” she says comfortingly, once she’s realized he wasn’t going to respond; he doesn’t need to, the lethargy oozing from his demeanor indication enough to act. She pats him on the shoulder before grabbing her thermos and leaving the room. “I started the coffee pot again, I’ll get you some.” 

He grunts, signifying his gratitude.

“You’re welcome,” she laughs, turning out of the room. 

She makes the trip back to the lounge, the feeling of redundancy itching in her skin as she makes her way over the same pattern in the hallway over and over. The smell of bubbling coffee is enough for her to disregard it, refilling her thermos and grabbing one of the last paper cups from beside it. When she turns back, Moblit is standing in the doorway grumpily, pouting like a child refusing to take his nap.

He takes the cup gratefully, tipping it back. They fall into silence, both leaning on each side of the doorframe. Hange takes a sip, the steam rising from her mug fogging her glasses, the world a blur of white in front of her.

“What time is it?” Moblit chokes out over his cup. His face is twists in a grimace, but his eyes are just slightly more awake.

“Is the coffee that bitter?” she asks, quirking an eyebrow at him. “You look like you’re constipated.”

He doesn’t need to answer; the coffee machine was cheap and old, sputtering out on its last legs, bought years ago when even Hange finally started gagging at the sight of the grimy coffee dispenser in the canteen wedged between the staff fridge and the ice dispenser. She didn’t mind, and the rest of her team didn’t complain, grateful to have something close by and uncluttered for them to get them through grueling shifts. The sour taste only woke them up more, anyway.

“Never,” he says, offering a cheeky smile. “I’d never insult your coffee.”

“Damn right.”

“But seriously, though,” Moblit presses. “I need the time.”

She glances down at her watch. “Almost six.”

“Crap,” he groans under his breath, his head falling back, hitting the wall with a soft thunk. “I’m really going to need this coffee then,” he says, turning out of the room.

Hange trails behind him, slowly mingling paces behind his quick stride, and by the time she has made it back to the on call room, he is already outside of it, struggling into his own white coat.

“What are you doing?” Hange asks, watching as he struggles along the hallways.

“Going to work,” he laughs sarcastically. 

“You’re fucking kidding me.”

“Nope,” he quips. “Decided to put myself on for a shift today on the schedule, only to end up being on call the night before.” He slurps his coffee, the way his brow   
furrows and his shoulders sink making the gurgling almost melancholic. “And the night before that.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, dude,” Hange says. “How are you not dead.”

“I am,” he says. “On the inside.”

“You didn’t try to get out of it?”

“Didn’t want to go through the hassle,” Moblit says. “I thought I would be able to last through it, didn’t seem like it would be that long. Turned out to be the weekend from hell.”

“You think you can actually make it through the day?” Hange asks him. She looks him up and down, his face haggard and his skin and hair oily. His eyes blink slowly, squinting as if he were looking through a thick fog. His words are rushed with his movements, seemingly frantic as she follows him through the twists and turns of their path, snatching files and binders and zipping in and out of rooms with an unsettled quickness. When he does stop to answer her, he almost seems to sway on his feet.

“I guess I’m going to have to,” he says. When Hange raises her eyebrows at him, he raises his hands, defending himself. “It’s not like I have a choice, okay? I’ll be fine.”

“You can’t be sure of that,” Hange sighs. She takes one file from him, labeled from the night before, notes from an appendectomy and admittance to a recovery ward. Looking at the others tucked under his arm, she can only wince in sympathy at him having to handle a busy night.

“I’ve survived worse,” he says. “And I survive it better than you guys ever do.”

She chuckles nervously. He’s right, in a way; she has seen him running on such a low amount of sleep before. She has seen everyone here but him do the same thing after sleepless nights, trudging through the day, feet dragging across the ground, words drawled out slowly and yawns forcing their way through their mouths, a coffee mug glued to their hands. What made her worry about him was the way he coped with it, the lethargy that plagued everyone else seemingly breezing over his head. Instead, he buzzes around, his lack of sleep translated into an impossible, giddy energy. It’s almost comical watching him go about, a massive, speedy wreck fueled by his constant nervousness. In a way it helped, making him grow faster with his work, but it also made him grow sloppy. A quick body with a mind lagging three paces behind it leads to clumsy mistakes. There was no room for those in her operating room.

“I need you to do more than survive,” she retorts. “You can be in comatose and still survive. That doesn’t mean you get to pass out in the middle of caring for a patient.”

“At least I’ll be in the emergency room,” Moblit snorts. “Might as well pass out in a hospital.”

She grimaces at him as he stumbles behind her as she suddenly turns a corner, caught unaware of the sudden movement, his disorientation proof enough to her of him lacking even the ability to survive on the hospital floor. 

She’s about to flash him a sly grin over her shoulder, as if to press her correctness on the matter, when she bumps into someone in front of her. Her mug stutters precariously in her hand, the two a tangle of limbs before righting themselves with nervous laughter. 

“At least I can still tell where I’m going,” she hears Moblit mumble under his breath. She ignores him, focusing on the woman in front of her, sputtering as she rights herself, straightening out flowery scrubs and crisp coat. 

“Hange!” Nifa says breathlessly, offering a bright smile despite her dishevelment. “Good to see you this morning.”

“Just like almost every other morning,” Hange grins, peeking up from the papers she shuffles through, Moblit trying to snatch them back. “Or night. Or any other ungodly time we get stuck here.”

“Of course,” Nifa affirms with a smirk. She starts on her way again. “Anything you need me to do before we get into the swing of things?”

“Yeah, actually,” Hange muses. “Help me convince Moblit to get some sleep before he turns into a nervous blob on me.”

Her joke elicits a lingering groan from Moblit, and Nifa turns around, snorting. She looks to Hange with a bemused look, one eyebrow quirked as she approaches them. The absence of their rushing bodies lets Hange take in her face, scanning the familiar bags sunken below her eyes and the pallor of her drowsy face, the smell of coffee and sweat emanating off her. Standing beside Moblit, they look like equally exhausted portraits of the other.

“Does that mean I can leave too?” she asks with a wry smile.

“I’m not leaving,” Moblit protests. “I told you I’ll be-“

“No you won’t,” the two women say in unison. “I’ve seen you running on so little sleep,” Nifa continues. “Your anxiety is practically contagious. It unnerves the patients.” 

“You don’t get to lecture me when you’re just as exhausted,” Moblit says.

“Wait,” Hange says, interrupting the quarrel budding between the two of them. “What do you mean, ‘just as tired’?”

“We’ve been on call the same nights,” Moblit says. “So if she’s still here I think I should be able to stay too.”

“Please don’t,” she says earnestly. She turns to Hange. “I made it through the weekend without ripping his head off, I don’t think I’ll last another day.”

“Okay, slow down,” Hange says. She lifts a hand to silence the two of them, leaving them standing dazed in front of her like a couple of zombies as she peers at them sternly over her glasses. “You were both on call the last two nights?”

“Three.”

She ignores their comment. She thinks she’ll crack if she acts on it. “And now you’re both working a shift today.”

“It’s not like-“

“Don’t give me any of that,” Hange says. She starts to turn around again, slowly picking up her former pace as she makes her way through the halls. The two of them trudge behind her. “I know sometimes we aren’t as alert as we should be,” she continues, “but holy shit. I need you guys alive.”

“We’re not dead yet,” Nifa says.

“Well it would be better for me if you were because then you wouldn’t be killing me right now,” Hange mutters. “Are you two daft?”

“There’s nothing we can do now,” Moblit says. “Let’s just get on with the shift.”

“Yeah, I know,” Hange grumbles. “I haven’t even been busy while you guys were busting your asses off. Why didn’t anyone call me in?”

“We didn’t want to bother you,” Nifa sighs. “No one likes last minute shifts.”

“That’s why we pass them on to other people!” Hange says. She turns the corner, the three of them stopping with their backs against a wall to let an empty gurney go by. “I would rather you have bothered me.”

“We just didn’t want to take you away from your family,” Moblit says, his voice fumbling, thick and stuttering on the last word.

There is a beat of silence between the two of them, the bleeps and hums of medical machinery entertaining their awkwardness, still unmoving. Nifa glares at Moblit with wide, angry eyes, lips moving around silent words as she mouths him an unintelligible warning that sends panic through his eyes, and Hange is about to ask what’s wrong between the two of them before Moblit starts up again, words broken and nervous.

“I-I mean,” he stammers. His smile twists his face like a grimace, his laughter that tumbles out of him against his volition senseless as he rambles on. “I mean we didn’t want to take you away from your husband, yeah, I know the two of you – of course you can consider the two of you family in itself, it’s not like-“

“What are you talking about?” Hange says. She can barely follow him with how fast he speaks, and what she does catch confuses her.

“I mean, uh, it’s not like you need to have kids to be a family-“

“Moblit!” Nifa hisses at him, shoulders stiff and lips pressed in a firm, white line on her face, her body physically flinching at his words. One of her elbows juts outwards, sinking into his ribcage, the rest of his speech leaving him in a pathetic grunt as she knocks the wind out of him.

Hange feels her stomach drop, a swell of anger washing over her. “This about the adoption.”

“We just-“ Moblit stutters.

“We didn’t want to bother you,” Nifa says. “We wanted you to take it easy, so you don’t stress yourself out even after you’re so upset.”

“I’m not upset,” Hange snaps; the growl in her voice betrays her lie, but her blood still boils at the assumption of how she feels, the idea of her being coddled for her own private issues. “I’m fine, I don’t need any delicate handling.”

“We thought it would be better for you-“

“Well, you thought wrong,” she says. She turns around, making her way back down the hallway again, the two of them skirting her tail. “I’m fine, I’m not dying. I can work”

“Are you-“

“Look,” she says, whipping around to look at the two of them. She squares her shoulders, puffs out her broad chest as she looks down over the two of them. “None of this is any of your business. None of this has anything to do with my work. If I need time off, I will tell you, otherwise you have no right to assume how I am doing or talk about my personal life behind my back without my knowledge at work again. “I don’t know who else is in on this idea that I shouldn’t be working,” she continues, “but if you see them, tell them to back off with the two of you.”

“We’re sorry,” Nifa breathes. She hugs her files to her chest, almost shrinking into Moblit.

They hunch under her gaze, wary eyes scanning the pale tile floors for something to look at, anything other than her seething face. The way they avoid her stare just makes irritation boil under her skin, skitter through her empty stomach like awful bugs. They stand quietly, tenderly on their feet, as if prepared to jump away - or to her rescue - at any moment, ready for some disastrous and unstable outburst. She will accept their empathy, but their pity makes her teeth grit against each other if only to replace the agony of the thought of it. 

“No,” Hange sighs, “I was just – look,” her hand moves to pinch the bridge of her nose, and she can feel the soft, prickling burn of exhaustion against the back of her eyelids, ever present in her exasperation. For a moment she thinks about sending all three of them home. “I really appreciate that we’re close enough to talk about this kind of stuff with each other. You’re wonderful support, and I don’t want you guys to think I take it for granted.

“But I know I would give you guys the respect of you privacy,” she looks down at them, pleased to see their faces slowly transform into something less apprehensive; they actually look at her this time. “Or at least your own decisions, or whatever. I don’t fucking know.

“Just know that I wouldn’t hide it if I couldn’t come to work,” she says. “So don’t assume anything. Or spread it around.” Her last words are dry, spoken on a serious tongue, and their understanding half smiles are enough for her to know that they’ve realized that for no reason would the two testing those boundaries be amusing to her. 

She turns away, leaving them with a feeble farewell, muttered to sound something more like a weak apology or consolation. Despite trying to convince herself that what she said was important, her cheeks still burn with a silent shame as she clocks in; she shouldn’t have yelled the way she did, could at least have been more understanding. They only wanted to help, and even if the pity left sourness on her tongue, she feels a jolt of gratitude remembering how kind they were when she came back from the appointment crying. They had left her in the on call room to sob for a good fifteen minutes, nothing disturbing her but for the soft creak of the door as one of them pushed another tissue box into the room before flitting away.

She’s managed to gobble up whatever tears that threatened to spill since then, the furious ache in her chest subsiding into nothing more than an afterthought. She delves into her work to prevent it from blooming again, from letting it bleed through her veins and into her sore and tired bones.

The ability of her work to busy her in messy and furious, hurried work makes the distraction all the more effective; it makes her all the more grateful for it. The current of the emergency room sweeps her up into its chaotic motion the minute she steps in, eyes prying through folders laden in her arms, pushing her way through doors and knocking into trays and more doors and more beds of sick, groaning people, peeking over each one, sending them to other levels for scans or surgery, hissing with attempted sympathy at a dislocated shoulder and a deep slice of skin she saves from the brink of a nasty infection, biting down laughter at one of the rare sex toy incidents that bless her. The waiting room is crowded, everyone too sick or injuries too swollen to prove than anyone had been responsible enough to come in the two days prior. It seemed that people liked to keep their adventure to the weekend, only to present her with the consequences of their stupidity on the Monday. No one liked to ruin a weekend with a trip to the hospital, which only made the start of the week all the more hectic for her.

The hours fly by in a flurry of noise and patients – not at all very patient but hopefully all grateful – going by so fast that the sun’s glare through the windows is as much a surprise as an apocalypse, shining bright in her eyes as it reflects off the snow outside. Hair in her face and heart beating in her chest, the start of the afternoon is marked by nothing more than the busy labor of the morning. Despite the break from the more difficult work, she can’t help but be a little disappointed; not even one heart attack had marched its way through the emergency room doors yet.

Still, her back and legs begin to ache with the amount of time she has been on her feet. She makes her way behind the triage desks, leaning her butt against it for support as she sifts through paperwork.

“Where’s the rest of the dream team?”

Hange smirks, raising an eyebrow as she turns towards the dry drawl sounding behind her.

“What’s it to you?” 

She can barely see the nurse perched behind the desk, the top of her grey hair just peeking out from the top edge of a hardcover book. It falls to the desk, showing Hange a tense face, icy eyes staring at her from behind the lenses of round glasses. Even as she straightens, her chest is barely above the top of the desk, squaring her shoulders useless to make up for her adorable lack of height. 

Despite the severity of her tone and her stony face, the gentle shine of her eyes brings a comforting friendliness. “It’s weird to see you without the others, although I’m not surprised, with how the morning’s gone. Thought it was abnormally quiet for a Monday.”

“And what does that have to do with us, Rico?”

“Like I ever have an easy day whenever all five of you show up all at once,” Rico says. She doesn’t look at Hange, turning over to a computer monitor, slender fingers flying over the keyboard. 

“We make it exciting,” Hange says. 

“And then we have to clean up after your messes,” Rico retorts, the corner of her lips quirking in a small, sly grin. Her lips part slightly, canine tooth poking out from   
between. 

“You work in a hospital. The entire thing is a mess.”

“Doesn’t mean you have to make it worse,” she leans over, looking at Hange from the side of the monitor. “Or that you can avoid my question.”

There’s a soft tickle in her pocket; it takes her a while to navigate the mess of her pockets before she finds the sleek coolness of her phone buried snug at its deep bottom, her fingertips tingling as it buzzes. She remembers the man on the subway with a small snort – one that Rico takes as a reaction to herself rather than the amusements of Hange’s own mind. Levi would enjoy that selfie.

She turns around again, back facing Rico, her elbows resting behind her on the counter. She leans her head back, feeling the sore muscles ache wonderfully with the stretch of it. “Moblit is dying from his night shift, and I think Nifa is off somewhere tending to some genius who had a dislocated shoulder for the past two days.” She sighs, straightening. “I think Doug went to a funeral? I don’t know where Keiji is. Took the day off, though.”

“Maybe those two lovebirds are off having a romantic date,” Rico muses dryly. “We all know it.”

“I don’t know which couple you’re even talking about,” Hange laughs. “But you’re completely right about them. Whichever one you’re referring to. Speaking of couples-“

“Me and Ian are not a thing,” Rico interrupts.

“Yet you assume I was going to say his name, that’s enough proof of guilt for me.” She hears the vicious clack of fingers slapping on the keys, can feel Rico boring holes in the back of her head with her glare. Her snort of laughter catches in her throat once she sees the text message on her screen. “Oh?”

The clacking of keys stops abruptly. “What is it?”

“Huh?” Hange starts, head whipping back and forth between the screen and Rico in a blur. “Oh – it’s nothing, just got a text.”

She gets nothing more than a hum of recognition in response, the two of them turning back to their screens, fingers working over respective keyboards. Hange’s reply is short and blunt as always.

H: At work what up

She shoves her phone into her pocket, about to push herself off the desk before feeling her phone buzz again. She sighs, smiling wryly at the ceiling. 

N: You don’t talk to ur best friend in over a week and respond like that???  
N: zo im hurt

Typical.

H: I have a busy life nanaba give me a break  
N: boohoo  
N: u should never be too busy for me  
N: seriously though, where have you been? Its been too long  
H: its been a week  
N: still too long. We gotta meet up talk about life. Esp you u must be so excited!  
H: ???  
H: wha  
N: the adoption? U find out who the little bean is yet?  
H: no not yet  
H: honestly the way things are going I don’t think we are ever gonna even get the bean in the first place  
N: D:  
N: excuse the use of the emoticon  
N: but oh my god no! what happened?  
H: a big fat rejection letter happened that’s what  
N: didn’t u negotiate it?  
H: yep  
H: just got double rejected IN PERSON  
N: im so sorry to hear that  
N: what are you going to do?

A folder is slapped down onto the desk beside her, followed by Moblit’s body flopping pathetically on top of it. He starts to whine about his last patient, something about drunk idiots and cortisol, insistent and annoying enough that she has to pull herself away from her phone, following him as he makes his way down the hall, tagging along to help his poor exhausted ass.

She taps in her goodbye quickly.

H: first of all get back to work   
N: yeah good point  
N: we should get together and catch up, of course when youre not busy, I know work is cruel to u  
H: eh just give me any time I should be able to get off work  
H: I mean after the tiny sobbing fit I had after the rejection everyones been a little easy on me  
N: oh zo, why didn’t you call me?  
H: I was gonna alright ive been busy  
N: fair enough, text me when u can n ill see when im free  
H: got it  
H: talk to you later okay  
N: hopefully not weeks later  
H: I am saving lives here shut ur mouth

She’s about to slip her phone into her pocket before she remembers the selfie she had taken that morning; she’s about to send the selfie when she remembers the party Levi had told her about. Her fingers fly over the screen, moving through her texts with ease just as the photo pops up into her conversation with Levi.

H: well this is later  
N: whats up  
H: cant go a week from now levis got a thing  
H: someones birthday that night  
N: got it  
N: and tell them happy birthday!!

She smiles to herself just a little, letting herself laugh for once in the past week before slipping her phone in her pocket and getting back to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How the hell do you format text messages.
> 
> Also let's hope no one can tell that I don't know how a hospital works. There's also proof that emergency room visits go up during the beginning of the week because people don't want to ruin their weekends. So maybe I got something accurate.


	4. Chapter 3

“Can you stop doing that?” Levi says, reaching out to flip the passenger visor up with a snap before shifting into reverse. “I need to drive here.”

Levi cringes as the back tires of the car start to roll off the edge of the driveway, hissing when he feels the lurch of them across the curb, crunching under the slush and clumped wetness slathered over the road. The streets are slick with the wet snow floating from the sky, winding down to lay against the car windows in fluffy, thick flakes that turn the view in front of him into a blistering blur. They start to plant themselves in the streets, cold enough that they refuse to melt at the touch of asphalt. It is only the crush of them under car wheels that reduce them to runny slush and puddles pooling by sidewalks, the sounds of distant traffic jams running as smooth as they can on roads cleared by their own wheels. But here, the roads begin to grow white, his car the first to mark the snow that blankets the road. He wonders if the snowploughs will even come before tomorrow morning to clean the mess.

Hange sits back in her seat, her arms crossed over her chest and her lips pursed in an irritated pout that Levi ignores. Before he has even made it onto the main roads, he can see Hange pull it back down out of the corner of his eye.

“You don’t have to be rude,” she mutters to herself. She flips open the cover of the mirror imbedded in the overhead visor, its bordering yellow a sickly bronze reflection against her skin as she leans forward into its view. She inspects her face in the mirror painstakingly, closing each eye individually to examine the thin, black lines along her eyelids, brushing her thumb along the edges of her lips to shape the colour more evenly. 

“You don’t need to panic about them, you know,” Levi sighs. It is meant to be reassuring, and he winces when it leaves his mouth in an irritated grunt. “The party is barely formal.”

“Well, I want to make a good impression. I barely know them.”

“They’re not going to care,” Levi says. 

“You were the one who convinced me to go to this party,” Hange starts, “raving about how badly they’ve all been wanting to meet me, your mysterious doctor of a wife.”

“Well I thought you should meet them.”

“If it matters to you so much, then that must mean they care a little bit,” Hange interrupts. She raises her chin, one hand brushing against the contour of her jaw, clicking her teeth when she finds some invisible bump along her skin. She squints at her reflection aggressively, as if it were an opponent she was trying to intimidate. “God forbid I want to look good, for once.”

“You look good,” Levi deadpans; he never takes his eyes off the road. “You always look good.”

“I know that,” Hange says. “I just want to make sure others can see that.”

“They can see that,” he groans. “I don’t get why you’re putting so much effort into this.”

“Well sometimes it’s nice to put effort into your appearance,” Hange muses. She leans her head down, fingers brushing through her hair, tucking loose wisps back behind her ears. “I never have the time. It’s nice when it doesn’t have to be a nuisance.”

“Whatever you say,” Levi groans. The car lurches on the roads, moving inch by inch behind the packed lanes as they make their way towards the highway, still a long ways away. Levi sits back, huffing out a heavy breath and loosening the scarf wrapped around his neck.

Something in the car starts to vibrate, and it almost makes Levi’s heart jump with nerves before he spots Hange’s leg off the corner of his eye. Her knee bounces vigorously, her wringing hands bobbing in her lap, the car shaking under her feet.

Levi reaches out a hand wordlessly, grabbing her knee. She jumps under his touch, her hair whipping over her shoulders with the sudden movement before she settles back into her seat, her leg still.

“Sorry,” she mumbles. She buries herself into the seat, head bowed as she looks out the window at the cars slowly trudging by, pedestrians racing their way through the streets with blowing scarves and red, cold faces as they try to escape the weather’s assault. When he turns back to the wheel, the bouncing starts again, barely felt but there, starting on and off as Hange grows impatient before catching herself again and stopping.

“You’re too nervous about this,” Levi says. He doesn’t look to her, but he can feel her grow stiff, her leg freezing mid-bounce; he can feel her stare on his temple as he turns onto the highway ramp.

“Like you’re not,” Hange snorts. She turns away, sticking a thumbnail between her teeth, as if clamping down on her voice before it can betray her anxiety. It is all too loud, forceful and accusatory in an unwarranted need to be defensive. 

“Not as much as you,” Levi says. “You’ve been acting like you’re about to meet the queen.”

“You were the one who was so pushy about me meeting them!” Hange says. She leans forward, eyes wide as she stares into the mirror, baring her teeth. “I want to make a good impression.”

“They’re a bunch of dorks, Hange,” Levi replies. “If anything, they’re the ones who should be freaking out about appearances.”

“That’s not comforting when you called me the same thing an hour ago.”

“I have said nothing but good things about you to them,” Levi says. One hand releases the steering wheel, gesturing out above it in smooth, swiping motions, laying out the facts. His voice grows low, an attempt to be reassuring; it only ends up gravelly, choked as it cracks over his own dry mouth. 

“Does that mean you think they’re bad things?”

“Hange, I’m trying my fucking best here,” Levi growls. She snorts, a small relief to him to make her laugh. “They’re probably twice as nervous about meeting your standards than you are them.”

“I don’t have any standards!” Hange exclaims.

“Neither do they,” Levi snorts. 

“Yes they do!” Hange says, her hands waving out in front of her. She almost knocks the visor off its mount, the light from the make up mirror bouncing against her   
face, flickering. “You sound like you made me out to be some almighty being to them, and now I feel like I have to keep up the farce of it.”

“There is no farce of it,” Levi says. He reaches out in front of her, flipping up the shade. “Put that mirror away.”

“I’m not done yet,” she protests, pushing it down against his grip until he gives up, shaking his head incredulously.

“Hange, they’re going to love you.” He puts one hand to her knee before it can start bouncing again, squeezing it. “And with the way you and Auruo share the same knack of bugging the shit of me, you’ll at least love him.”

“I guess,” Hange sighs sadly. Before he fumbles over another reassurance, he sees the corner of her mouth curl into an amused smirk. “I guess I’m just overdoing it now.”

“You’re fine.”

“Are you sure?” she asks, turning to him earnestly. “With the makeup and all?”

He turns to her to answer, a chance glimpse off of the road to look at the creased lines of her face, staining her teeth as she bites into her lip. It is not as if her face in unfamiliar to him now, but her being made up is still a pleasant, if unexpected, change, one he unconsciously has to adjust himself to. Her eyes seem narrower, cat-like in their intuitiveness, sharp as the dark lines across her lid flick off to the side, her lips calling his with just enough colour to draw out the plump curve of an enticing grin. It is rare enough he can almost think of her new endearing looks as something as a gift.

“Sexy,” he deadpans, turning back to look at the highway. He scans the signs overhead to see if their turnoff is next. It isn’t.

She gives an exasperated gasp, her fist planting firm into his shoulder in a punch that is just playful enough that he doesn’t think he will have to worry about getting a bruise in the shape of her ring on his skin. He gives an muffled snort, determined not to show her his own amusement, trying to stay unsmiling as she folds her arms over her chest, turning away from him with an over exaggerated pout.

“Lewd,” she says, her tone that of mock offense. 

“I’m just stating the facts,” Levi says. 

“Well it was quite subtle of you,” she says. He watches her smirk widen out of the corner of his eye.

“I can’t help it,” he continues. “The days when you actually take the time to shower, it does things to me.”

“Quite an assumption,” Hange muses, laughter bubbling from her chest. “How do you know I didn’t just slather myself in antiperspirant?”

“Please tell me you didn’t fucking do that.”

“Of course not,” she laughs. It takes her a while for her snorting cackles to settle down. “You look so horrified.”

“I wouldn’t put it past you,” Levi remarks, turning away as Hange moves to shake his shoulder. 

“God, have some faith in me, Levi.”

“Hard to have faith in your hygiene when it doesn’t exist in the first place,” he grumbles. “Fucking Christ, you’re a fucking doctor, I’d think you’d know something about it.”

“Hey,” Hange says. “Don’t imply that I don’t care for my patients. My workplace is the epitome of cleanliness.”

“Nice to know you don’t take it home with you.”

“That’s what I have you for, though.”

“Oh, okay,” Levi says, “I see how it is. I’m just meant to be the person who cleans the house. I’m just your servant.”

“Not mine,” Hange corrects. “Ours.”

“Well excuse fucking me.”

“Come on,” she presses. “You know I try to help.”

“Yeah, and you’re absolutely shit at it,” he replies. 

“Well not all of us get to have time after a nine-to-five workday,” Hange says. “But I still try to find it.”

“Maybe you should try just a little harder.”

“Or maybe the time I did find is being spent meeting your friends right now,” retorts.

“I told you not to come if you couldn’t,” Levi groans, clicking his tongue.

“Oh my god, I was joking,” Hange interrupts. 

“It’s not a joke to me,” he says, “it stresses you out as it is, I don’t want you overworking yourself like you always do. Or getting in trouble.”

“I’m a fucking surgeon, overworking myself is part of the job,” Hange snorts. “And it’s not like I can get in trouble there. They love me.”

“Yeah, well I don’t think that love is unconditional.”

“Don’t worry,” she continues. “I was fine taking a shorter shift today.” She leans back in her seat, her voice falling to a low grumble, her mouth curling downwards into annoyed grimace. “Besides, with the whole adoption thing, they’ve just kinda, I don’t know-“

“Taking it easy on you?”

“You too?” Hange asks wryly.

“Don’t get me fucking started,” he breathes, his knuckles stiff around the steering wheel. “It’s like they’re handling me like a fucking bomb. They’re smiles are unnerving too, it’s like they’re just baring their teeth at me like I’m their fucking dentist or something.”

Hange snorts. “At least the people at your work have the energy to be subtle about it. Or the opportunity to be clumsy without killing someone who we’ve cut open on the operating table. Like, two days ago-“

“I don’t need to know,” Levi says quickly. “Please, I really don’t need to know.”

“Whatever.” Hange lies back, head staring up at the fabric lining of the ceiling of the car. Levi takes the opportunity to flick the shade back up again, sighing in relief when she doesn’t pull it back down. “If they’re gonna be like that, I’ll just take as much advantage of it as I can.”

“Brutal.”

“Hey, I love my job, but a woman needs her break once in a while,” she says. “And if they’re gonna act like I’m made of glass I’ll sure as hell give them any reason to give me the day off. I already have another day to myself this week after this party. A whole day!”

“Maybe you can spend the day cleaning,” Levi says, smirking, “since you never have the time to.”

“Sorry,” she sighs, exaggerating the disappointment in her voice, sickly sweet in her joking derision. “I already have plans.”

“Nice.”

“Yep.” She says it with a wide, round-cheeked smile, almost proud of declaring it. “I’m finally getting some time to catch up on life. And sleep.”

“And hygiene, hopefully.”

“I don’t know,” she thinks out loud. “Only so much can get done in a day.”

“Of course it can,” Levi sighs.

“Hey,” Hange protests. “You realize you’re the only one who picks at me about this kind of stuff?”

“That’s because we’re married,” Levi replies. “I can get away with it. We’ve already learned we don’t need to be polite to each other”

“That doesn’t change anything!” Hange exclaims.

“So it’s the same with your friends, then? I thought we had something special, Zoe.”

“It being special is nothing to brag about,” Hange says, picking at her fingernails. “And neither is being rude. Me and Nanaba are close and she isn’t rude about it.”

“That’s because she lives surrounded by the stench of dog,” Levi grunts. 

“She knew me before she had all those dogs.”

“Maybe you got her used to the smell, then,” Levi laughs. He winces when she smacks his arm again.

“You’re just upset about me and those dogs because Doug only humps your leg and not mine.”

“Tame my fucking ass,” Levi mumbles to himself. “When you do go see Nanaba this week, make sure she reminds Mike that he can’t claim his dogs are obedient when they can’t keep their ballsacks off my fucking pants.” 

“They don’t have any,” she replies. “Neutered.”

“Tell him to keep their empty ballsacks off my pants, then.”

“Will do,” Hange smirks to herself. Her voice grows quieter, breaking the lightness of the moment as she grows just grave enough to put his nerves on edge. “Although, there is something else I want to ask her.”

Levi chances a glance at her, his eyes off the highway for a split second to take in the stern set of her face. She turns away from him at the eye contact, looking down at her fingers as they wring and twist together in a way that looks almost painful. The side of her cheek sinks into her face, no doubt clamped between her molars as she chews the soft skin on the inside of her mouth. The mischievous curl to her lips is gone, left by a thin, red line in her face devoid of the humor that he just now realizes was keeping away an almost palpable anxiety that buzzes through the cramped space of the car.

“What is it?” he finally asks, his eyes turning back to the road. He doesn’t look at her as she starts to stutter out her explanation, words tripping over themselves as they tumble from her mouth in nervous discordance.

“I mean, I don’t want to set this in stone just yet,” Hange starts to elaborate, pacing her words slowly, working over each letter to make sure it feels just right, “because it’s a big decision and I don’t want to rush into anything we might not find good for us in particular. But I think we should consider other options, regarding having a baby.”

“Zoe,” Levi sighs. “I’m not in the mood.”

“I know,” she presses, “neither am I. But I think we need to start thinking outside what we’ve considered so far.”

“Look, I’m sure we’ll figure something out,” Levi says. “We just need to keep at this.” He keeps his eyes on the road, his shoulders growing stiff as they rise, his body leaning forward. It’s almost like if he intimidates it enough, it will spit out new adoption papers out of the concrete and into their laps through the car floor. 

“You know it’s not going to be that easy,” Hange says sadly. “You have to face the fact that they’re probably never going to let us adopt.”

“So what are you saying?” Levi spits. “You’re saying we should just give up on this now? That we should give up on having a family. You were the one who was so determined to fight this, and now you’re saying we should just drop it after so long? Let them keep us from living our lives?”

His stomach churns, aching as it pulses out against his skin in sharp, stabbing pains as his anger tries to bubble its way out. It starts to run through his blood, slowly seeping through him; it starts with the aching of his heart as it pumps fiercely against his ribs as they heave heavy breaths, then, flowing out into his fidgeting legs, the tense muscles in his back and up his shoulders, flooding into his arms and manifesting in his hands. One clenches the wheel with a white-knuckle grip, shaking with the force of it, the other flying sporadically in front of him as he rants, his voice on the brink of a vile yell.

“I’m saying we need to look at other options,” Hange says weakly. 

Levi stops, sucking a deep breath into his lungs. He turns to her, feels the muscles in his jaw release in a clenched grinding of teeth he didn’t even notice as his own fear and frustration leaves him at the sight of her. Her face is lined, eyes bordered with purple circles under her makeup that are just revealed by the streetlamps hanging over the highway as they zoom past. Her downcast eyes and sunken, tired face just reminds him of how much she hates to accept the words herself; she doesn’t want them to be true as much as he does.

He shakes his head, sucks in another shaking breath between his teeth. “I’m sorry.”

“No, I-“ her words are soft, barely there against the whipping wind outside. “I know how much adopting meant to you. Please know that it does for me, too.”

He feels her gaze against his temple, and he works his jaw into a fake yawn only in order to make sure he isn’t clenching it again. He is silent for a moment.

“What does Nanaba have to do with this?” he asks.

“Well, I just thought,” Hange starts, broaching the subject ever so slowly, words flowing like molasses. “She’s really always been there for me, and she would do anything for the both of us, you know. And I think she would be open to helping us.”

“How?”

Hange sighs, taking a deep breath that sets her shoulders wide and strong as she looks Levi in the eye. “I wanted to ask her if she would be willing to be a surrogate.”

His sigh is heavier than he wants it to be, sounds more hampered with an insinuated aggravation that he really doesn’t feel, and doesn’t want to disappoint her hope with. It is more of tiredness, of an exhaustion that sits uneasily in the pit of his stomach like a rock of an anchor weighing him down with an unmotivated sluggishness. He knows that it might be their only chance for a family, although he loathes the thought of it; he would not admit how upset he was by his rejection, the inability to save another child from a fate like his, to nurture in a way he barely knows and wonders if he has the capacity to, and to keep himself from being the burden he has to keep reminding himself not to be, or isn’t in the first place. He sometimes still can’t seem to distinguish the difference.

There is a beat of empty sound, nothing but the buzz of the air past the car as they make their way through the thickening snow. Hange buds in reluctantly when she notices that his response is not coming. 

“I know you really wanted this adoption,” Hange says. She keeps her eyes on the floor mats, the toe of her boot poking at the puddles of melted snow settled into their grooves. “I don’t want you to feel like I’m giving up on it. I would never want to take something like that from us.”

“We need to think about it, first.” Levi says softly.

“I don’t want to upset you about this now,” Hange groans. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not upset,” he tells her, “not at you. It’s okay, it’s just,” he huffs out a breath, shifting in his seat. “It’s just stressful.”

“I know,” Hange breathes. For a moment, they do nothing but sit dejectedly in their seats, watching cars zoom by to pass them, trees stripped of all their green and blanketed in crisp whiteness. He is almost startled at the sight of her when her eyes widen, brow furrowing as she cranes her neck to see through the front window, head turning with whatever had caught her eye as they drive away. 

“I think our exit is ahead,” she says.

Levi hums out his reply, eyes straining and failing to catch a glimpse of the sign overhead long after it is lengths behind them. He keeps to the right anyway, following the lane onto the next ramp, quickly checking that this was in fact the right one. He creaks his way up to the red light slowly, the snow blissfully blanketing them as they are stopped still.

“I’m not opposed to the idea,” Levi says. “You can ask her, if you really want to. Just don’t go planning random shit without me.”

“Thank you,” Hange hums. When he meets her eyes, she offers him a small, gentle smile, her eyes sparkling.

“Yeah,” he mumbles awkwardly. There is no need to thank him as if he was the one giving her the permission, not for something they plan to do together. 

The rest of the drive is spent in the quiet of the empty roads around them, only a few brave souls joining them as they grow blurrier through the flurries. As they trek farther on, the roads grow more white, only a few tracks in the snow over the asphalt indicating the path of anyone at all; many of them already begin to fill with fresh snow, their mark soon to be gone without a trace. The sky begins to grow dark above them, the glowing oranges and pinks of the setting sun that had shone off the snow like citrusy fluffs now dissipating into an eerie, calm grayness. It layers the town, almost making it seem more like a muffle than the growing mounds of snow are, sound nothing more than a throaty, distant hum in their ears. They keep going, turning into spacious, quiet suburb, massive trees hanging over the weary roads, branches bowing under the weight of the pillowy white clinging to them and creating a crisscross of a canopy above them. The low shine of the moon behind the glowing, gray clouds peek between the gaps, shining off crystalline icicles hanging off everything, pretty in their sharp and dangerous way. Levi continues winding his way through the narrow roads, away from the chaos of whatever this quaint place can get up to when it isn’t snowing buckets; after being in the city for so long, he would not know where to find himself in such a small place, with no where to go and nothing to do but sit and enjoy the peace. He is familiar with chaos.

He doesn’t worry how they will get home in this mess of a storm; he has driven through much worse that this is nothing more than a cakewalk. He only peeks at each plush house as they pass them by at a snail’s pace, eyeing every number nailed into the brick for the right address, and feels the slightest thrill of nerves and elation when he finally turns into the driveway of the proper one.

“God,” Hange mutters, starting to straighten herself up in her seat. She leans forward, both hands to her back, groaning as she stretches the muscles. “Why the hell do they live so far away?”

“Surprisingly, the world doesn’t revolve around you,” Levi says. He gets a ticked off roll of the eyes in response. “Or where we live.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” she retorts, “and you know it. It just seems inconvenient. You’re only half and hour from work tops from where we are, and here they are living in the middle of nowhere.”

“I think we spend too much time in the city,” Levi snorts to himself. It is awkwardly spacious for him, though, unused to the way the houses stand far apart instead of huddled together in clumps, of the empty streets that would have people milling by, even on messy nights like these. It makes him feel exposed, like all eyes are on his back despite the barrenness of the yards and street, failing to give him the sense of comforting claustrophobia the privacy of crowded sidewalks and buildings usually grant him.

Levi steps out into the cold, snow crunching soft and delicate under his shoe as he hoists himself from the car and hurries his way to the steps leading up to the front door. He turns around only to call to Hange, bouncing on the balls of his feet impatiently as he watches her stumble her way to the backseat of the car, her butt sticking out as she pokes in again.

“I’m coming, geez!” she yells at him, voice muffled from the inside. She edges her way out, long, slender gift bag in hand as she slips across the icy concrete to Levi’s side.

“They said we didn’t have to bring anything,” Levi says. 

“You always bring something to parties, Levi,” Hange says. “No matter what they say. It’s just proper etiquette, and it’s just a nice thing to do. In fact, I think your rudeness is starting to bleed into your social skills.”

He rolls her eyes at her, but drops the subject as she rants on, still confused about her adamancy about food as gifts to people; she had been so stubborn about buying wine the last time they had gone to the grocery store that Levi had only given in only to spare the meat from thawing out in his bags and spoiling.

Her lecture continues as they make their way to the ornate front door, taking each step slowly and steadily, the thin, invisible layer of ice shining over the steps despite the salt scattered along the concrete just threatening under their feet. There is noise already coming from inside the house, a muffled chattering and low buzz of ambient music coming from inside. Through the stained glass that decorates the door, he can see blurry bodies moving to and fro in clusters, colourful and vibrant in posture and gesture. Hange brings her knuckles to it before he has the chance to gather himself or dust the snow from out of his hair. One blob of a person responds to the hollow knock, a very short and orange figure approaching from the inside, the details of them coming into focus as they grow larger and larger before the door completely gives way, swinging into the house.

“Levi!” Petra cries, a shining smile lighting up her flushed cheeks. Her cry introduces the sound of the bustle from inside, laughter and conversation bombarding him.   
“You made it!”

“Yep,” he says, making his way inside. He takes a glance at Hange, sees her eyes alight with curiosity, a good natured grin plastered on her face as she lays her eyes on the shorter woman in front of her.

“You must be Petra,” she says, a soft, high breath of a laugh awkwardly bubbling out of her; the same higher pitch it always is when she meets new people, opting for a good impression. She begins to extend her hand. “It’s so great to-“

“Introductions inside!” Petra exclaims, and Hange sputters off, defeated. Before her face can fall with her faltering hand, Petra takes it, reaching for Levi’s coat sleeve as she yanks them over the threshold. “Hurry, before the cold comes in and the cat gets out.”

“Your cat a runner?” Hange muses, nudging Levi into the foyer and clicking the door closed behind her on Petra’s command.

“The name Rascal was pretty fitting for him,” Petra groans. “I haven’t seen him since people started showing up, I wouldn’t be surprised if he got out already and is shredding the screen door in the backyard wailing to come in. Either that or he’s hiding from the noise.”

“Must be an introverted little thing,” Hange says, starting to kick off her shoes. She gives a soft chirp in pleasant surprise when Petra comes behind her, taking her coat and scarf and gushing as she takes the gift bag. “Sounds like you, Levi.”

Petra squawks out a laugh, giving Levi a toothy smile that resembles a grimace. He scoffs to himself, resigning himself to being the butt of most conversations for the night. Despite him feigning his distaste, he is still fond of it. He’s gotten used to their joking by now.

He follows her and Hange’s laughter deeper into the house, revealing a cluster of people huddled around tables of finger foods and bottles of drink. As they make their way towards them, they turn around one by one, eyes widening at the sight of Levi making his way through, a chorus of ‘eyy’s and ‘yo’s announcing his arrival. 

“Levi!” The voice is loud and charming, and just a bit too enthusiastic as another body pushes its way out of the throng. Auruo bursts towards them, arms wide open for an embrace that Levi reluctantly takes, patting him on the back. “I almost thought you wouldn’t show up.”

“Do you guys have that little faith in me?” Levi asks. “You make it seem like I’m a hermit. Or that I hate you.”

“To be fair,” Petra pipes in over her shoulder – she stands alongside Erd and Gunther, who have swarmed around Hange, who stands flustered and kindly awkward in the wake of their almost awe and already has a wine glass in her hand, “the snow is pretty bad out there. I was about to call you and tell you two not to drive up here if you couldn’t.”

“Ridiculous,” Levi scoffs jokingly, and even Hange gives a wave of the hand as if to dismiss the storm’s severity; they really have been through much worse. “I would have gotten here if I had to trek through the snow in flip flops.”

“Is it bad that I’m slightly surprised there was no shit joke in that?”

“Defeats the purpose. Shit would only keep me warm.” Hange chokes slightly on her wine.

“Seriously, though,” Auruo chokes through stifled laughter. He leads him farther into the room. “I’m glad you could make it.”

“It’s your birthday,” Levi says, one hand smacking Auruo on the shoulder. “I wouldn’t miss it.” Auruo beams at his words, and Levi almost laughs at the gaudy expression on his face, almost shocked at the tears he thinks must be welling in his eyes. 

Levi lets him drag him into the fray of people, happy and cheery faces all alight with an excitement he tries to emulate. He gratefully accepts what’s offered to him, eyes looking down at the finger foods dotting his paper plate, his mouth occupied with the rim of his glass in order to give them an excuse from joining into any awkward conversation. He enjoys it by the sidelines, offering a small laugh and nod of the head when necessary to strangers, sighs in relief and ease when he does end up with familiar faces from work, even if no more than acquaintances. 

He thinks of finding Hange, gluing himself to her side like he always does. She is barely anywhere to be seen, nothing more than an active blur weaving her way through bodies and around tables, a bubbling laughter that carries its own giggles and chuckles as followers with her. When he does spot her, or manage to hear the words of her voice rather than a garbled mess, she is vibrant, her eyes wide and her hands waving animatedly. She drags in crowds with her words and the peculiarity of her stories and experience – she’s no doubt spouting off techniques for her surgeries, accidents in the emergency room – and they stand with their eyes glued to her, faces in captivated awe. Everything about her is theatrical, to the tall stature of her puffed chest and wide, strong shoulders, to the way her nimble fingers manipulate the food in her plate rather grossly, shaping replicas of organs or buildings or god knows what out of nacho chips and veggie dip. Unlike him, she is in her element, losing herself in the opportunity to lecture and share, passion grabbing the attention of everyone around her.

They continue with this routine throughout the night, Hange bouncing from person to person, making herself known and loved as always - he smirks, she had done the same with him in the beginning – him finding a wall to watch people mill about on their own, never participating but still ever aware and appreciative of their amiableness towards one another. The atmosphere was friendly, and despite his own anxieties within the unfamiliar faces, he finds himself at ease scanning the rooms from open doorways and providing an attempt at polite chatter when he can. 

“Well, hello,” a voice laughs right against his ear. He jumps, turning around to bump noses with Hange. “What are you up to all alone all the way back here?”

“Nothing,” Levi says. He looks back into the party, sees people cluster their way around Auruo, beaming with pride. 

“I can tell,” Hange says. “Shame, you never take the chance to liven up a little on these occasions, you know that?”

“You know this isn’t my thing.”

“Well, you should try to be a little more pleasant,” Hange says. “It gets lonely having to entertain everyone without you.”

“You were the one who abandoned me for the center of attention in the first place.”

“Aw, I’m sorry,” Hange whines. She grabs Levi’s sleeve, and he snatches it away. “Why don’t you come with me then?”

“No,” Levi deadpans. 

“It won’t be anything big,” she says, starting to lift herself off her perch, “Petra just needs help getting dessert out on the table, once people are done picking off   
what’s left.”

Preparing food doesn’t seem like much of a social exhaustion for him, so he begins to pick himself up off the wall, following Hange into the hall. He almost bumps into her back when she stops abruptly, body frozen like a defenseless hunter in the hungry gaze of a lion.

“Hange,” Levi begins to protest, “what the fu-“

She puts up one hand to silence him. She starts to tilt her head, the familiar sly look of curiosity and cunning blooming onto her face. 

He follows her gaze upwards to the stairs that wind up into the darkness of the upper floor, and with a snort realizes that it is actually the opposite; it is Hange who has spotted something peculiar, caught sight of something cowering as they peek through the bannisters of the railing into the fun below. 

The child clings to the bannister with one hand, the other brought up to her mouth to suck at her fingers. She brings her knees to her chest, a humble smile pulling at her lips as she spots Hange staring at her. When Hange uses her raised hand to offer a wave with her fingers, the little girl curls into herself, looking away as her smile widens on her ruddy face.

Hange finally peels her way from her spot, slowly inching her way up the stairs towards the girl.

“Hange,” Levi warns. “I don’t think we should be going upstairs.”

She disregards him. She kneels just a few steps below the child, who tucks herself further away into the shadows of the stairs with a breath of a giggle, as if the two of them were playing a game of hide and seek. Hange perches her chin on her hand, waiting for the child to come out to her with a wry smile.

“You know,” Hange muses in a soft voice, “you should be tucked away in bed right now.”

The little girls bows her head, her smile disappearing behind her knees. Slowly, she nods her head, her sandy curls bobbing like springs.

“Couldn’ sleep,” the little girl says, her voice chiming softly like the cry of a baby bird, muffled by the fabric of her pajamas. 

“Hm.” Hange reaches out a hand to her. “Why don’t we go get your parents to tuck you back in then.”

The girl stares at Hange’s hand with wide eyes, scrutinizing it with an almost strained look before her own hand extends itself tentatively. Her chubby fingers wind their way over Hange’s, who takes them with an assuring tenderness as the two of them get up. Hange leads he down the stairs one at a time, watching with a beaming smile at her shy movements before getting back onto the floor.

She leans down, wrapping her arms around the girl’s waist. With a groan, she hoists the giggling child up onto her hip, bouncing her as she practically skips her way into the kitchen. Levi follows suit, gazing at the two of them as they laugh and hold each against the other, as if it were so natural for the two of them. Seeing Hange now, it almost seemed wrong for her to not have a child in her arms to dote over.

“Hey, Petra?” Hange calls playfully as she makes her way into the kitchen. The child buries her face into Hange’s neck, the smallest squeaks of laughter making themselves known from under the girl’s mop of bedhead, a puffy halo that shadows Hange’s shoulder. “I think we have a party crasher who came to visit us. Do you know what I should do with her?”

Petra stands hunched over the counter, flustered over boxes of foodstuff. Her head snaps up at Hange’s voice; Auruo, Erd, and Gunther, who lounge around the kitchen table, also turning at the disturbance. When her head pops up, she gasps, her eyes growing wide as she makes her way to Hange.

“Oh! My goodness,” Petra laughs wearily. She moves to scoop the girl out from Hange’s arms, and she is almost reluctant to leave them just Hange is to let go, the two trading a lingering smile before she retreats into Petra’s breast. Petra brushes a hand through the sandy red curls of her daughter’s hair, tilting her head up in order to get a good look at her pout.

“What are you doing up so late?” Petra muses. She presses her way past the two of them. “I think we should bring you back to bed, shouldn’t we? Thank you so much, Hange,” she says offhandedly as she disappears around the corner. “I’ll just be a minute.”

“Sweet little thing,” Hange hums, leading Levi to the other side of the counter where, as always, she strikes up conversation. “Your little one is such an angel, Auruo.”

“Ah, yeah,” he says sheepishly, one hand rubbing the back of his neck. Even as he looks down at his shoes, his face grows alight with pride, his familiar arrogant smile a tad softer and genuine, his voice lofty with praise and gratitude. “The two of them can be such little jokers sometimes, but they’re truly a blessing.”

“Just as wonderful as their parents,” Hange says.

Levi almost snorts through his drink when Auruo swells, his chest puffing out. “Well, no parent is perfect, but I try my absolute hardest. You want to give them everything, you know?”

“I can’t even imagine,” Hange says almost wistfully, as if pining for the experience. 

“Ah, it won’t be too long before you won’t have to,” Auruo says. “Really,” he presses, “don’t give up just yet.”

“Auruo,” Levi sighs, “you know it’s not that easy.”

“Of course I do,” he exclaims, “but it’s almost disgusting that they would reject you, Levi. I can’t think of a single reason that would see you guys unfit.”

“He won’t be able to either if you keep sucking up to him like that,” Gunther snickers.

“I speak only truth!” Auruo retorts, one hand waving Levi up and down. He wants to sink into the counter at the eyes on him. Instead, he just pushes farther into Hange’s side. “I have no reason to suck up, my only prerogative is to be honest.”

“Don’t discourage him,” Hange pipes up, grinning. “Maybe if Auruo doesn’t stop kissing his ass Levi will finally shit out the stick that’s always stuck up it.”

“Thanks.”

“Rude.”

“I thought we were talking on the virtue of being honest,” Hange shrugs. “Not my fault.”

“Seriously,” Erd says. “It’s almost like Auruo loves him more than you do, Zoe. I’d watch out if I were you.”

“Nah,” Hange says. “Auruo wouldn’t dare, would he?”

“Wouldn’t dream of breaking up an obviously perfect relationship, Zoe. Especially not a budding family.”

“Your hopes are too high,” Levi says dryly.

“I have complete faith in you two,” Auruo says. The other two men nod. “If you’re so adamant about it, you’ll get your adoption, I know it.”

“Thanks,” Levi smiles. “That means a lot.”

“We have no other choice but to be adamant,” Hange says. “We will get that family.”

“You don’t have any other means?”

“Levi didn’t tell you?” Hange says, mischief dripping from her tone. “I thought he would have told you that his manhood is abnormally absent.”

Hange is about to laugh with the others around her, taking in the way their heads fall back in their ignorant amusement, Gunther even choking on a sip of his drink as he coughs through his chuckle. Her own reaction is stopped dead, a bubble caught in her throat that pops and escapes in a dreading wheeze as Levi sinks his elbow into her ribs. She looks to him, the smile melting from her face as Levi gives her a nervous glare, giving her a small shake of the head. She winces, stuttering out an apology to him as she tries to calm down the others’ laughter. Levi only crosses his arms over his chest and hunches over, trying to make his distaste come off as nothing more than a disgruntled frown rather than any real embarrassment, hopes that the heat rising in his ears and up his collar isn’t flushing his steely face. 

It is Petra that saves him from his spot being the butt of the joke, getting Auruo up to help her out with the food sitting along the counter. Hange’s comment is brushed off as they move back to the dining room to continue the celebration among tired and languishing guests, the two of them trying to hide how badly they were perturbed.

Hange doesn’t disappear into the crowd now; she lingers behind Levi hesitantly, her body and short, staccato of a voice only talking when spoken to an imitation of Levi’s own stiff stature. Around the cake, she takes a moment to curl a pinky finger around his, looking down at him with apology in her eyes. 

He squeezes her finger back, just slightly leaning into her, an inevitable and sincere forgiveness. He keeps his eyes on Auruo and Petra as they mingle, passing cake around, relaxing as along with a reassured Hange.

It seems like the original strife and pomp of the party has disappeared, leaving just a lingering sense of merriment among buzzed and calmed guests already partied out. Some even begin to make their way out the door, with much fuss on Petra and Auruo’s part. Levi takes advantage of the opportunity, nudging Hange’s knee with his own under the table, jerking his head ever so slightly towards the front door when she turns to look at him.

“Well,” she says, stretching as she gets up from the table, obliging to Levi’s request. The two practically push each other from the buzz of goodbyes that swarm them, pushing each other out the door eagerly. “I think it’s about time me and Levi head out. Don’t want to fall asleep at the operating table tomorrow.” 

Thankfully, their car isn’t blocked in by any of the other guests. They make their way to each side of the car, slowly slipping into their seats with a soft sigh of relief, glad to be out of the chaos and finally resting.

There is a beat of silence, nothing but the sound of the gentle wind and fluffy snow smacking onto the window glass urging them from their awkward moment of thought.

“I’m so sorry.”

“Just forget about it,” Levi says. He buckles his seatbelt and turns the key, feeling the car come to life underneath him, the dashboard alight with noise and bright lights. 

“I can’t,” Hange groans. She’s more upset by her own joke than Levi is. “I didn’t trigger anything, did I?”

“I’m fine,” Levi reassures. He starts to back out of the driveway, cringes as he hears the awful crunch of snow being flattened by the working of the car tires. This time, Hange doesn’t inspect herself in the mirror, only looks down dejectedly at her hands. “I said to forget about it. What’s done is done.”

“It just slipped out,” she continues. He thinks he hears her voice wobble. “I barely realized where we were, that we had people around us. I should have thought of how it would upset you-“

“The joke itself didn’t upset me,” Levi says. “You know we joke about it all the time, because we can do it together. It’s just useless when you’re around them.”

“What?”

“They wouldn’t get it,” Levi says. “They think you called my dick short, not that you mentioned I didn’t have one in the first place.”

“You’re not out to them?”

“Sherlock Holmes cracks the case,” Levi drawls. He gives her a small smirk, just to put her at ease.

“I had no idea,” Hange breathes. “God, this makes it even worse-“

“I said to forget about it,” Levi presses. “They didn’t know what the fuck you meant. They’ll forget it by the end of the week, it’s not your fault.”

“Do they know about me?” she asks, her brow furrowing. She purses her lips as she curls into herself, drawing the collar of her coat farther around her neck. “Do you   
think-?”

“They fucking love you, Hange,” Levi says. “Even if they did, I’m sure they wouldn’t care.”

She hums out an acknowledgement, turning back to the window. It is bright outside despite the blanket of night, the snow reflecting the glow of the moon and streetlights, emitting an eerie violet glow from the ground that engulfs them as they drive through its midst. The shine of the winter night is comforting against the backdrop of the city, nothing more than a cluster of bright dots in the distance, only shown between the gaps of the houses and buildings that flash past as Levi turns onto the main streets.

“Tonight was fun,” Hange says to herself. She doesn’t turn around, just stares wistfully out the window, deep in her own longing thought. “Their family is so nice.”

“Yeah,” Levi says. He reaches one hand over, brushing a stray hair from Hange’s temple, calmed by the contented hum of a moan that she utters in gratitude. “They are.”

**Author's Note:**

> Finally starting the fic I've been planning! It may take a while between updates, but rest assured I will do my best to keep this going.
> 
> I do realize that there may be many things in this fic that I can easily mess up. While I hope I'm educated on it, it may be inevitable that I end up including major inaccuracies; in that case, please do not hesitate to let me know if something I have written is wrong, and I will edit it ASAP.


End file.
